


Back to the Falls

by xXLampGuyXx



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Dipcifica, F/M, Post-Canon, Season 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:22:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24609865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xXLampGuyXx/pseuds/xXLampGuyXx
Summary: The school year has ended and the twins find themselves on their way back to Gravity Falls for another Summer filled with adventure. They are joined once again by their friends, and enemies, they met the Summer before. Dipper and Mable find the Shack is in shambles, just like they left it. This time around Dipper is ready to go on more adventures than ever before accompanied by Mabel, the Gruncles, and anyone else who happens to be available.It wouldn't be Gravity Falls if there wasn't something strange going o. A mysterious figure finds its way into their lives as the twins unravel a mystery far greater, and different, than they could imagine. Mabel also finds herself tasked with another matchmaking opportunity which she just can't resist.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not complete, but if you want to read then feel free to do so, just be aware I may go back and change a few sentences if it is not marked as complete here.  
> Chapter 1- Complete  
> Chapter 2- Complete  
> Chapter 3- Complete  
> Chapter 4- Complete  
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> Chapter 21- Not Started  
> Chapter 22- Not Started

Mabel awoke with a start. She quickly looked up to see if they were there. Sadly, she realized they were still moving. It must have just been a bump in the road she realized as she shifted her body in the seat. The bus seats weren’t exactly the most comfortable places to sit. Once she was better positioned, she leaned her head out into the aisle to see the windshield. Even though she was only three or four rows back she still couldn’t see the front that well. This was partially because she had just woken up and her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the light yet, and partially because there was a very large and very pink pig blocking her view.  
  
Waddles let out a little squeal of excitement as she patted him on his wrinkly snout. Dipper had insisted that Waddles could not sit with them on the trip back. On their way home last summer Waddles had crammed himself in the seat with them half the trip. Waddles just didn’t seem to be the best bus buddy. It had taken Mabel’s parents everything to get the driver to agree to take a pig on a six-hour bus drive. She guessed it took so long because neither Mom nor Dad were the most threatening or tough looking of people. It had taken the last driver all of three seconds to let Waddles on the bus, but something about two well-built men with brass knuckles and a ray-gun seemed to be more convincing than angry and stressed Mom and Dad. After fifteen minutes of arguing, a very irritated bus driver had allowed Waddles on the bus. Perhaps it had also taken longer because Waddles was a whole year older, which meant a whole year bigger. Waddles was now twenty-five pounds and looked every bit of it. Yet another reason Dipper didn’t want to share a seat with him.  
  
After she finished rubbing his snout, she pushed Waddles back into his seat so she could see the front of the bus. Her eyes had adjusted to the light as she was petting Waddles so she could see a little better through the windshield. She didn’t exactly know what she was looking for exactly though, there wasn’t much to really call a landmark. Just very tall trees and a long road. The trees themselves were the only things that told Mabel they were almost there. It hadn’t been obvious on the first trip to Gravity Falls, but the trees were different. Not different because they weren’t in Piedmont, the trees of Gravity Falls were just different. None of the trees in the area had the same feel to them as they did in the forest around the Mystery Shack. When she had been out with Dipper in the forest, the trees seemed to be almost brighter than they should be. It was like the trees were clear and visible around them, but the farther away she looked the forest was darker and more mysterious. No matter how deep they went into the forest the darkness was just out of reach, it was hiding itself from view, even the path taken to get deeper into the woods would have the same mysterious shadow around it. Mabel had never really been all to observant when it came to things like direction or navigation so without Dipper, she easily would have been swallowed by the forest forever.  
  
Dipper always had a compass or a map in one of the journals he would be following. Mabel couldn’t imagine how Wendy managed to make it through the forest with no problem regardless of where they were or where they were going. Lumberjack intuition she guessed, or was it lumberjackess? Lumberjill?  
  
As she was thinking Dipper stirred slightly, he must have fallen asleep sometime after he did because the last thing she remembered before drifting off was him talking about Wendy, Soos, Ford and his Journal. Most of the school year had been filled with late night conversations, mainly one-sided, about what he was going to fill the Journal with. Mabel almost regretted giving him the Journal after her little trip through the multiverse, almost. While Dipper talked about it all night long, she did still enjoy listening to his plans. Most of Dipper’s adventuring stuff centered around whatever Ford had planned or what Ford wanted to find, so the majority of his monologues were about what to call his Journal. For now, Mabel just called it ‘Journal’. She had heard countless times about his fear of writing anything on or in it because it was so special. At the end of the summer last year there were no portals, fissures, rifts, or whatever else Ford referred to them as. This meant that the Journal was a real one of a kind. Dipper’s logic to her had been that if he wrote a ‘1’ on the front then there would have to be a ‘2’ to follow. That also meant that the second Journal would have to be from the same universe as the Mabel-Dipper person she had received the first one from. For now, the Journal was blank and resting inside Dipper’s vest.  
  
Dipper mumbled slightly as he shifted his arm slightly. It must have not been that long after she had fallen asleep that he had joined her if he was waking up now. Her nap was pretty well timed because she had only been awake a few minutes and could already see the outlines of the town. Perhaps she had woken up because of a bump like she had thought or maybe something about crossing the barrier caused her to become alert since she had been involved in so much weirdness last time.  
  
To anyone outside of Gravity Falls the events she had gone through would have been traumatizing. She was sure that some people in the town would also be changed, but the town had a way of protecting itself and those inside. Thankfully through a combination of being in the town for a few months and her unusually cheerful disposition she was not traumatized by anything that had happened. Okay maybe just a little by Gideon and the gnomes, but that was different.  
  
She started to think back to some of the events of last summer, there were so many things she needed to see what had changed since she left. Were her matchmaking skills as good as she hoped? Were Tambry and Robbie still together? What about Wendy, was she still the same adventure loving girl that had been there last summer?  
  
All of these questions were buzzing through her head as she saw the shapes of the buildings becoming clearer and more defined. She glanced over at Dipper, still asleep, and began to think about what Wendy would think about him now. Stan’s road trip had put Dipper’s romantic feelings away for a while, she had thought for good, but around Christmas Dipper had that look in his eyes again. It seemed that the fireplace reminded Dipper of Wendy’s hair. He would get that day dreamy look which he only ever seemed to have when he thought about Wendy. Mabel wasn’t really sure that any of her matchmaking skills had rubbed off on Wendy and Dipper so she thought to herself that it would only end up the same as it had last summer, preferably not with the shape shifter though. Even when Mabel had voiced her concerns Dipper didn’t seem to think it would be an issue. They were technically teens now so maybe that changed something, but that also meant Wendy was older. Wendy’s birthday was kind of a mystery to Mabel so Wendy might still be fifteen for a little while but would definitely be sixteen by Summerween. Mabel could only control so much when it came to Dipper and his love life, so she figured that whatever happens will happen whether she tries or not.  
  
As she thought about the redhead she looked ahead as the bus was pulling into the stop. It wasn’t really a stop so much as just part of the road with a bench and lamppost. She looked over at Dipper to see if he had woken up anymore yet, he hadn’t, but as the bus lurched to a halt his expression changed as he was slowly being pulled back into consciousness. Mabel was about to just move her brother slightly to see if that would do the final trick. She leaned over to give his chest a good nudge when she caught a glimpse of a very familiar shade of red out of the corner of her eye. One glimpse was all Mabel needed to change her tactic of gently nudging Dipper to forcefully shaking him awake.  
  
“Dipper! Look c’mon we’re here!” she screamed in his face with excitement.

Dipper panicked as he was awoken by Mabel’s rather forceful shaking and screaming in his ear. He was still too tired and now startled to understand what Mabel was trying to tell him. He tried to ask what was happening, but before he could even open his mouth Mabel was already jumping off of him. He watched as she ran down the aisle and he turned to the window on his right. He screamed in surprise as he looked over only to see instead of trees and ground in front of him, there was Wendy staring through back at him.  
  
The lumberjack laughed as Dipper tried to regain his cool and really piece together his surroundings. Still looking out the window at Wendy laughing, Dipper stood up out of his seat to shuffle off the bus. No sooner had he stood up then he saw Wendy fall to the ground as Mabel tackled her to the ground. Now it was Dipper’s turn to laugh. Having been caught off guard, the redhead had not had time to react to Mabel and was now face first in the dirt with Mabel clambering over her back.  
  
Now that he had some time to get used to what was going on he was able to finally get off the bus. He stepped down into the dirt along the road. He thought to himself as he looked down that there really wasn’t much difference because the road was also dirt. While Wendy was shaking Mabel off, Dipper took a deep breath. The smell of pine hit him as he breathed in the rich fresh air. It was good to be back. It had been almost nine months since he had gotten a breath like that. Funny how he didn’t even notice how clean the air was until he was gone. Through all the dangers they had faced the previous summer none of them could compete with the stale, polluted air of Piedmont. Dipper had felt as though he was going to choke to death from coughing the first couple days back home. The air here wasn’t just clean, it was perfect. After nine months it was good to really fill his lungs to full capacity without worrying about dying of a coughing spasm.  
  
That breath was enough to really clear Dipper’s head and wake him up. Now it was time to go and talk to Wendy. He walked over to where Wendy had successfully pinned Mabel in a counterattack. Upon seeing him she let up on Mabel and turned towards him. She opened up her arms in a hug motion as she stepped closer. His heart started to speed up again, not because he was being startled this time. It had been a rough year without seeing her and here she was. Standing there with her arms open waiting. He ran up to her and wrapped his arms around her in a hug. He was a few inches taller than last summer, but the redhead still towered over him, well sort of. His hair was about level with her nose. Dipper had to tilt his neck to look up at her. When he did, she was looking down at him but quickly released him and stepped away.  
  
A little confused at the abruptness of her release, Dipper wondered why she would move away so sudden. This was quickly answered when he was knocked out of his thoughts by Grenda plowing into him as she scooped him off the ground. Grenda didn’t stop there; however, she continued barreling forward. He was rushed forward until Grenda acquired her second target; Mabel. Mabel was much more prepared than Dipper had been and charged into Grenada’s free arm.  
  
Once the twins had been thoroughly strangled in a hug from the lumbering tank who was Grenda, they were set free and allowed to breathe. He needed to really be more observant he thought to himself. This was the second, no third, time in five minutes that he had been caught of guard. This was just not his day for being prepared. He moved over to his left to try and see past Grenda. Sure enough, there was someone hiding in Grenda’s hulking shadow. It was Candy, she was so small compared to Grenda that he wouldn’t have even noticed her had he not been looking for her. Candy and Grenda always seemed to show up together so at least he could remember something useful today. He watched as Candy tapped on Grenda’s back to signal the bigger girl that she was ready. Grenda stepped aside as Candy jumped forward onto Mabel, bringing Mabel’s tackle score to 1-2.  
  
As the two girls laughed and stood up, he looked around for anyone else in hiding. Gruncle Stan and Ford weren’t supposed to get back until later that evening. He thought that that might just have been a ruse to surprise the twins. After looking around though, he didn’t see any sign of the Gruncles. Come to think of it he didn’t see Soos or his truck anywhere either.  
  
Dipper asked, “Hey where’s Soos?”  
  
“Still over at the shack, he does have a business to run you know,” She looked at him quizzically as she finished, “Am I not enough or something.”  
  
Dipper stuttered a little as he replied, “Well no I– I– I uh… just meant—”  
  
Wendy cut him off before he could figure out what to say to respond, “Relax man I get it I just forgot I’m not as mature as you and Soos are.” She smirked at him after she said the last part.  
  
Realizing that she was messing with him he calmed down a bit, but just as soon started to get mad at himself for not acting cool. Oh boy here we go again, it’s last summer all over again. Although this summer, he wouldn’t mind a few less inter-dimensional triangles. There were just some things that didn’t need to be repeated, Bill was one of those things.  
  
As he was recovering from his slip Mabel interjected, “Yay, walking!”  
  
The Shack wasn’t to far away from the bus stop, both were kind of outside of the main town. Didn’t exactly make much sense to Dipper why the bus stop would be outside the town, but there wasn’t much that really did make sense around here. It would still be about a ten-minute walk up the road and onto the trail towards the Mystery Shack. Last summer stan had been there to meet them and load up their stuff into the station wagon. When they left, they had drove the car down to the station again, so Dipper had never had to carry his stuff that far.  
  
It would be a little different this time. Not only would they have to haul all the bags up the trail, but Dipper had packed some extra stuff now that he knew to anything could happen here. That didn’t mean he had tons of scientific equipment or anything. That would have been hard to explain to their parents why he needed all that expensive equipment. Instead he had brought more survival type gear like trail markers, a small tent, and flashlights. Plus, if he needed any tech stuff then McGucket and Ford would be the people to talk to.  
  
Once the bus left and the group had gathered up the bags, it actually wasn’t that bad with five people, they headed up the road. Grenda was the strongest of the group by far ad had elected to carry the camping/survival gear and one of Mabel’s smaller bags. Candy and Mabel were in charge of Mabel’s outfits and sweaters. There were enough sweaters between the two of them to clothe the entire town. That left Wendy and him to carry the rest of his stuff. Wendy didn’t seem to mind carrying the bigger of the two bags. She had got to it before he had a chance to get it and show off how strong he had gotten. She would join them on adventures later so he was sure there would be another time for that.  
  
By the time the Shack was in view Dipper was grateful he had ended up with the smaller bag, he had forgotten how the terrain sloped up around the Shack and was straining a little from the trek. Not to mention he was feeling a little sore from the way the bus seat had been pushing into him as he slept. He looked over at Wendy’s legs as they walked and thought about how the lanky redhead had to walk this hill when she came to work. That made him wonder if she had been able to see what Ford was up to.  
  
“So, you seen what Gruncle Ford’s been up to lately?”  
  
Wendy angled her head down to look at Dipper as she said, “Nah not really, I’ve mainly only been at the Shack on Weekends cause of school and all. When I am there, he’s usually out running through the woods somewhere or down on the bunker.”  
  
He was a little disappointed by her response, Dipper had been looking forward to some bizarre story about a monster or something. She had said that Ford was down in the bunker a lot so she must have seen him carrying something up or down with him.  
He asked, “Well haven’t you seen him at least carrying something down with him?”  
  
Still looking at him, Wendy’s expression changed to confused rather than her normal resting face. “How could I have seen him with anything, I don’t go out that way to often to run into him.” She said perplexedly.  
  
Dipper realized that Wendy had meant the actual bunker, the one with the shape shifter, not the room with the portal beneath the shack.  
  
“Oh sorry, heh, I thought you meant the other one.” He said casually, trying to brush it off by laughing.  
  
Wendy was more confused than ever now, “What other one, there’s another bunker? That’s so cool why didn’t you guys tell me?”  
  
If Wendy didn’t know about the portal room downstairs, then that meant Ford was trying to keep that place quiet. Ford probably had his own reasons for doing so, there was already so much attention on the Shack from the government when Ford had returned through the portal. Ford wasn’t even supposed to exist according to the government, well sort of, Gruncle Stan was supposed to have died in a car crash and had taken over as Ford to keep the Shack. Ford probably didn’t want anything getting out about his stuff in fear of the government sniffing around. Now Dipper had to think of some excuse to cover up the lab. He could be so careless sometimes; he was already mad for messing up earlier but now he had done it again.  
  
“What no I–, I thought you meant bunker like as in his room you know?” He laughed nervously, “His fort, his lair sort of thing.”  
  
Wendy’s expression changed again from an exited look about a new place to explore, to a skeptical face. She ended up buying it and they continued the rest of the way up to the porch in silence.  
  
Once everyone was on the porch, Candy had a little trouble because the bag she was carrying prevented her from seeing the steps, the door to the gift shop swung open to reveal a well-dressed man in a suit.  
  
Soos let out a chuckle as Mabel dropped her bag to hug the big man. Wendy; however, winced a little from Mabel throwing her bag on the older girl’s foot. It seemed to Dipper that he was the only one to notice her pain, he let out a short laugh before smiling up at Wendy. She smiled back at him, so he knew she wasn’t really hurt, just surprised.  
  
Soos stepped forward and gave his usual greeting, “Sup dudes.” He held out his fist towards Dipper. “Pterodactyl bros?”  
  
“Pterodactyl bros.” Dipper said as his fist collided with Soos’s in a fist bump.  
  
The last summer had seen some fallout between the two friends, but it was good to see that everyone was still on good terms to kick off another Summer of mysteries and adventures. Soos seemed just like he had been last Summer, fun-loving, light-hearted and kind, apart from his slight change in appearance. The suit he wore resembled the one Stan was always wearing, when he wasn’t in his boxers that is, complete with Stan’s fez. Soos, of course, needed a bigger version of the suit to accommodate for his more pear-shaped body. Stan had a gut, just not quite the size of the younger man.  
  
Once inside, Wendy began to head up the steps to the room the twins had shared last time, Grenda followed up with no problem. The twins and Candy stood at the bottom of the steps in despair, they were exhausted from the short hike up to the Shack and didn’t have the energy to go another step. Soos offered to carry the rest of the stuff up for them.  
  
Dipper was grateful for the help, he showed this by making his way over to the chair in front of the TV to collapse. Candy followed him, but Mabel being Mabel, decided to lay down where she was standing. He thought to himself as he sat there, they would really need to readjust to the physical demands of the area.  
  
After Candy and Grenda went home, Dipper was ready to go and unpack. He clambered out of the chair and made his way to the stairs. When he got to where Mabel was still laying, she got up and started up the stairs with him.  
  
The door opened with a creak as the twins entered the room. He stepped forward only to see two wax figures starring out the window, they must not have heard the door squeak.  
  
“Grappling hook!” Mabel exclaimed.  
  
Before he even had time to flinch, the sharpened three-pronged hook zipped past his face and directly into the chest of the wax figure closer to Dipper’s side of the room. The figure broke apart from the impact, but Mabel wasn’t finished yet. Dipper watched as she retracted her hook, now lodged in the wall, pulling herself forward to tackle the other figure.  
  
From somewhere downstairs they heard Soos call up, “Oh yeah hey dudes heads-up I forgot to tell you I brought up a couple of mannequins because I got kinda lonely with your room being empty and all.”  
  
After hearing Soos, he looked over at Mabel. She had paused when she heard Soos and was now holding the other wax figure halfway out the window. Mabel began to release her grip and the figure slowly slid the rest of the way out the window, hitting the ground with a wet smack against the ground below.  
  
Dipper called back down to Soos, “Oh uh…okay yeah well we’ll just get rid of them because we’re here now.”  
  
Glancing back over at Mabel, who at the moment was tossing the remains of the first figure out to be reunited with its friend.  
  
Mabel’s reaction time had been so fast that he didn’t even have a chance to try out any of the fighting moves he had read about in the library at school. He guessed it was a good thing that Mabel was just as lethal as always, even if it wasn’t a real monster.  
  
Once they finished throwing out the last little bits of wax, he sat down on his bed to unpack everything. Judging by the light coming through the window, Dipper thought that he’d have about an hour or so before they left to go meet Stan and Ford at Greasey’s. The older twins had been on and off adventures all year from what Dipper had heard from the short calls throughout the school year. It seemed that, while Stan was gone, Soos was in charge of the Shack, but upon return the Shack was run by Stan. Soos didn’t seem to mind as far as Dipper could tell, just being in the same building as Stan was enough for the big guy. Stan was like a father to Soos.  
  
Thinking about Soos’s father, Dipper wondered if Soos still had the pizza slice from his time wish. Messing with time had been fun, but Dipper knew all to well from Wendy’s black eye that it could be tricky and best left to the professionals. As he unpacked, he thought about his various adventures of the past Summer when unpacked something related to them. Now all he had left to take out was his Journal. He still hadn’t decided what to really do with it yet though. He knew that when the time was right, he would be ready. He kept it inside his vest pocket where Journal 3 had sat last Summer.  
  
“Hey guys you ready up there?” Wendy shouted up the stairs.  
  
“Huh, yeah we’re coming.” He shouted back to Wendy.  
  
Mabel asked, “Wendy which sweater should I bring, the cat one or the gopher riding a dirt bike one?”  
  
Dipper looked at the two sweaters she was holding up, neither of which could be seen by Wendy at the bottom of the stairs. He observed Mabel had failed to mention that the cat was also riding a bike of sorts.  
  
“Go with the light-up money one you sent me a picture of.” Wendy replied from the base of the stairs.  
  
After Mabel had found the right one. Apparently, she had two different ones that matched Wendy’s request. Soos and Wendy were waiting on the porch for them, Soos had changed out of his suit and was dressed in his green shirt he seemed to wear anywhere else. The group then proceeded to walk onto the ground outside the Shack, headed for Soos’s pick-up. Mabel tried to distract Soos’s gaze as they made their way past the now melted remains of the wax figures.  
  
The inside of the truck was a single and a half cab, not meant for many people. The backseat was filled with supplies, so Dipper was crammed between Mabel and Wendy. Not that he minded the close quarters; Wendy may be tall, but she was still very slim. Plus, it was Wendy, if it had been Candy or Grenda then he may have voiced some complaints.  
  
Soos turned the ignition and music began to blare through his radio. Wendy immediately began to groan; it was the same song she had chucked out his window last summer.  
  
“How do you not get tired of this!?” Wendy groaned loudly as she asked Soos.  
  
“It speaks to me in a way that only I have the ability to perceive its true beauty.” Soos replied poetically.  
  
Wendy groaned once more, “Okay just hurry up and drive so we can get there.”  
  
After a few minutes of Wendy’s groaning and the sounds of Soos’s radio, the gang arrived at Greasey’s Diner. Wendy practically jumped out of the car at the chance of freeing her ears from the sounds of Soos’s truck. Dipper hopped out followed by Mabel. Soos walked around the side of the truck and looked over the parking lot.  
  
“Doesn’t look like Mr. Pines is here yet, don’t see any sign of them.” Soos stated as he concluded his survey of the parking lot.  
  
“I’m starving, we came all this way and I’m done waiting.” Mabel said as she ran up to the front door.  
  
He noticed he was also very hungry, he’d barely eaten all day except for a small snack on the bus ride. As if on cue, his stomach grumbled in agreement with Mabel. Dipper followed Mabel inside where they were greeted with the aroma of well, grease. To Dipper this was how it should be, he wouldn’t want to eat at one of those fancy places where there was only the scent of candles and flowers. What were those places putting in the food that it needed to be covered up with all that extra smell? Here Dipper didn’t need to worry about that, he could smell the impending heart attack and clogged arteries from the door.  
  
Mabel had chosen a booth over near the man-o-meter machine, Dipper wondered how good he was now, he couldn’t possibly do worse than the first time. Right now, he was to hungry to worry about that and sat down next to Mabel in the booth. Wendy and Soos weren’t far behind him as he scooted in to make room, there would be six of them in all so they might have to rearrange in a minute. For now, Soos and Wendy sat opposite of Dipper and Mable as they waited for lazy Susan to take their orders and for the Gruncles to arrive.  
  
“What’ll it be?” The waitress asked the newly arrived group.  
  
He was a little startled because the voice sounded a lot like—  
  
“Pacifica” Mabel shouted with joy, “I didn’t know you worked here!”  
  
Pacifica looked up from her order pad, she must not have seen Dipper and Mabel walk in with Soos and Wendy. She was wearing a pink waitress dress similar to the one Lazy Susan frequently wore at the Diner, the only difference was how spotless Pacifica had managed to keep hers.  
  
“Mabel!?” Pacifica asked with a surprised but excited voice, almost like she wasn’t sure if she should be mad or happy that Mabel was here.  
  
“Dipper?” She looked at him, “What are you guys doing here?”  
  
Mabel’s stomach growled loudly, “We came to eat, I’m starving! I’ll take a dozen pancakes please.”  
  
“Why don’t you just make that for the table.” Wendy said chuckling at Mabel’s enthusiasm.  
  
Pacifica began to write frantically as she stood there, how much did she have to write to say twelve pancakes? Dipper looked at her as she wrote, her dress wasn’t what stood out most about her. Pacifica’s hair was long, like it had always been, with a large pink band stuck in it to hold her hair out of her face. The platinum color of her hair made it all the more noticeable, he wondered how that wasn’t like a health violation. Come to think of it, wasn’t Pacifica the same age as him and Mabel?  
  
“Pacifica you actually work here.” He picked at her.  
  
This was the last place he would ever expect to see Pacifica as a customer, much less as an employee. Her parents had been forced out of the mansion so maybe they had all changed.  
  
“Even a Northwest has to prove they can work!” She snapped back at him as she flipped her order pad shut. “If you must know, my parents believe that I will learn from dealing with the common folk.”  
  
Nope still the same old Pacifica, that whole deal with the ghost must have faded from her parents forcing her into the elite and pristine. Same with their last encounter, back when Mabel lost her face. Before he could continue musing, he felt a hand on his shoulder. This wasn’t any normal hand either, even though the hand was on his shoulder Dipper could still fee the extra finger.  
  
“Gruncle Ford!” He turned in his seat to face Ford and Stan.  
  
The two were dressed in their normal attire and looked rather tired. Stan walked closer to the table as Dipper talked with Ford.  
  
Stan cleared his throat, “Alright kid time to scooch.” He waited for Dipper to move before continuing, “So anyway genius over here decided to lure a oversized beaver with my breakfast this morning, I’m starving.”  
  
“It wasn’t a beaver Stanley, it was a unpreceden—” Ford began.  
  
“Yeah anomalous, oversized, and ‘Only slightly dangerous.’ I get it, I get it.” Stan interrupted him before Ford could finish explaining.  
  
Lazy Susan brought out a plate heaping with pancakes as Ford settled into the booth next to Stan. That left Dipper to sit over beside Wendy, again he wasn’t complaining. It was thoughts about Wendy that had kept him up so many times last Summer, here she was a year later, and all Dipper could do was think of her. Clearly, he had underestimated how much he had really gotten over on that trip with Stan.  
  
Lazy Susan sat the plate of pancakes down, “Enjoy.”  
  
She winked at Gruncle Stan as she walked off, or at least Dipper thought she was winking. It was always really hard to tell when one eye was always closed, she may have just been blinking. He looked across the table at Mabel, she was beaming with excitement. She had noticed Lazy Susan’s gesture as well, Dipper noted.  
  
Reunited once again, Dipper was glad that he could have this time together with everyone. They talked and ate their pancakes until the last little bit had been swallowed. Afterwards, Soos took Wendy home, much to her despair of his music taste, and Gruncle Stan drove Dipper, Mabel, and Gruncle Ford back to the Shack. Tomorrow would start a new day with plenty of adventures to tackle. For now, Dipper just wanted to go up to his room and sleep the night away. 


	2. 2

The sound of birds chirping in the early morning and the smell of something cooking downstairs caused Mable to stir. She rolled over in her bed, not quite as comfortable as her bed in Piedmont. As she rose into consciousness, she thought about how sore her legs were. Sweaters weren’t a light job by any means. Maybe one or two, but Mable had brought a sweater for each day of the Summer. Not to mention she also had supplies to make more for everyone else. She thought who wouldn’t want to wear a sweater? They were great for warmth and style; they could also be used fire starters. Personally, she would never burn one of her precious sweaters, it was Dipper who had suggested it when he was going on about survival training.  
  
The smell of breakfast was stronger now that she was awake. Pulling the sheets back, Mabel climbed out of bed and put her bare feet on the cool wood floor. She turned to look over on her bed where Waddles slept, he wasn’t there. She looked around the room to see where Waddles was. There weren’t very many places a bright pink pig could hide in the rustic attic. The smell of breakfast was coming up through the partially open door to the twin’s room. Maybe Waddles had gone down earlier she thought, as she put her shoes and a sweater on. This time she had chosen a more generic sweater, no animals acting like people, it was a deep purple with little blue and white stripes around the waist.  
  
Once she closed the door behind her, she called out, “Waddles, here piggy pig”  
  
No response, but there was the sound of movement downstairs. She skipped down to investigate, careful not to trip on the third step, it was a little bit more misshaped than the rest. At the bottom she turned to the kitchen. Stan was standing there in his loungewear, a tank top and boxers, making breakfast.  
  
Over to her right was the living room, she looked in there first to see if Waddles was munching on any leftovers. The room was empty except for one of Stan’s coffee mugs, presumably from this morning, she turned around to head into the kitchen. As she did so, the screen door on the back of the Shack was slightly ajar.  
  
Worriedly, Mable walked into the kitchen to confront Stan on the pig’s whereabouts. Stan turned his upper body to see who was walking in, still positioned in front of the stove.  
  
“Mabel! Just the gal I was looking for, want some breakfast?” Stan said in his grumpy, but also cheerful, morning voice.  
  
She looked at him accusingly, “Where’s Waddles?”  
  
Stan then nervously took a glance back down at the pan on the stove, the pan was filled with sizzling bacon. He stuttered as he tried to come up with an answer.  
  
“It’s not what it looks like.” Stan said as Mabel stared at the bacon.  
  
Mabel looked at him in horror, “You wouldn’t.”  
  
She turned and ran out of the kitchen, headed to the back door.  
  
“Wait, Mabel!” Stan cried out after her, she was already out the back by the time he tried to explain.  
  
She tore through the yard in search of her beloved pig. Waddles, along with Old Man McGucket, had about been dinosaur food last time he had been outside. That couldn’t happen again, they had sealed the hole shut on their escape last time, but something worse might happen if she didn’t find him soon.  
  
Ignoring the branches and thorns, she burst into the forest full speed. Waddles was nowhere in sight, this shouldn’t be surprising she thought, it was the forest after all. She didn’t have one of Dipper’s fancy maps so she had no idea if there were any magical spots nearby Waddles might have gone to. She hoped Waddles hadn’t found the gnomes, she’d rather not see Jeff again if she could.  
  
After about ten minutes of running through the trees and hopping over bushes, she was tired. Stopping for a minute to catch her breath and stretch, her legs were still very sore, she saw something running towards her. Not sure what she was going to do, she began to panic. This quickly subsided when the familiar glasses of Blendin Blandon reflected into her eyes. Just as quickly as it had stopped her panic resumed. What if this was like last time?  
  
“Stop! Take off your glasses!” She shouted as he slowly came to a stop.  
  
Blendin looked confused. He looked Mabel up and down quickly, noticing the small scratches from running through the woods. After he came to a complete stop he complied with Mabel, revealing his eyes to be their normal color.  
  
Blendin put his glasses back down, “Mabel, weren’t you just covered in—, never mind, I’m glad I found you. Where’s your brother?”  
  
Mabel replied, more calmly than before, “Uh he’s still asleep at the Shack.”  
  
“Al-Alright well just one of you will work I guess, come on we’ve got to go.” He said grabbing her arm.  
  
With his free hand, Blendin released his grip on the tape and the time machine sprung to life. Mabel and Blendin were transported in a flash of white light. She felt the ground beneath her feet disappear and then reappear just as suddenly as it had disappeared, or maybe it was longer. It was hard for her to tell exactly how much time elapsed as they were in motion. The light subsided and she pulled her arm away from Blendin.  
  
“Hey what about Waddles, I’ve got to find him.” She said to Blendin.  
  
“Waddles?” Blendin looked at her in confusion, “Well uh-uh we have the um, the time machine. I could take you back right when we left.”  
  
She took a second to think that over. On the one hand, he did have a point about finding him later; on the other hand, she really wanted to find Waddles now. Since she was already here, she decided to go ahead with whatever Blendin needed help with.  
  
“Okay, we can do that.” She looked around, “Where are we, or when are we?”  
  
Focusing on what was immediately in sight, she began to survey their surroundings. They were no longer in the forest; it seemed the machine also teleports the user as well as time travel. Mabel wasn’t to sure what controlled that, since the tape was for the amount of time to travel. The second thing she noticed were all the brightly colored tacky fabrics hanging up. They were at a fair of some sort. It couldn’t be the fair where they met Blendin could it?  
  
Blendin answered after she had a moment to look around, “We are at the fair, but twenty-five years in the future.”  
  
Mabel’s eyes lit up, “Am I still adorable?”  
  
“Huh-uh I-, we just got here. I uh-I haven’t been here exactly.” Blendin answered nervously.  
  
“What do you need me for then?” Mabel asked in surprise.  
  
Blendin looked at the monitor attached to his wrist; a red dot was fading away from the screen.  
  
“Well uh, you know how that big triangle dude kinda killed all the time guys?” Blendin asked, a little remorseful.  
  
Mabel did, Time Baby had been completely disintegrated with all of the time squad soldiers during Weirdmegedon. She had assumed that since the journals and town had been restored, then Time Baby had also been brought back to life.  
  
“I thought you guys got fixed after we defeated Bill?” Mabel said posing it as a question.  
  
Blendin was still tapping away at his watch, “Well no…not exactly, you see I wasn’t er- I wasn’t actually there, I was around to the side of the blast. Bill’s destruction only reset anything that belonged, we weren’t from the same time period, so it was permanent.”  
  
Mabel tried to comfort the skittish man, “I’m- I’m so sorry for Time Baby.”  
  
She thought back to all her encounters with the oversized baby, they weren’t memories she really enjoyed. She shuddered at the thought of it.  
  
“It’s alright, we were never really that close, I wasn’t in the same department as him anyway.” Blendin stated while staring at his wrist, “Anyway we’ve got a problem.”  
  
The time traveler then explained the reason he had brought Mabel along. Blendin was the last person with the ability to time travel now that the time squad was dead. That made it difficult to keep everything in order, especially because it was Blendin. She thought back to all the trouble the twins had caused him earlier, whatever he needed her for she was here to help. Blendin told her about what had brought them here; a time anomaly. It seemed that he had tracked with his wrist device had appeared in the fair and disappeared later in the day. His self-appointed mission was to find this person and prevent them from messing with time, and maybe recruit them.  
  
“Bet your pretty surprised now.” Blendin gloated at Mabel.  
  
She was confused, “No? why would I be?”  
  
Blendin looked at her to see if she was joking. Deciding that she wasn’t, his expression changed from happy to just as confused as Mabel’s.  
  
“Cause of my whole coded letter to throw you guys off my trail, so you didn’t mess up my life anymore. Most of that stuff I just made up to have some peace and quiet from you two.” Blendin was furious now. His whole plan to keep the twins from messing with him had worked, but unintentionally.  
  
He stared down at the ground and muttered, “The train part might have been real though.”  
  
Mabel was more confused than she had been about him bringing her. Blendin had gone to all that trouble to trick the twins into never looking for him again but was now mad that the twins hadn’t been looking for him. Purely because they thought he had died with Time Baby. She decided just to ignore all Blendin’s quirks and get on with his mission.  
  
“So, what…we just wait around until he starts shooting people with a laser gun?” Mabel asked, putting her fingers up in the shape of pistols.  
  
“No, no I thought of that. He’s probably too smart to show off that he’s from the future.” Blendin replied, brushing her suggestion off, “We need to find someone who looks like they are trying to fit in, but not very well.”  
  
Mabel looked back out at the fair. This was still Gravity Falls, just in the future, so wouldn’t people recognize a younger version of Mabel running around. That made her think, if she was here, where was the older version of herself and Dipper? Worried about causing another mess, she turned to Blendin.  
  
“What happens if I see myself? What if somebody recognizes me?” She asked, hoping his response wasn’t going to be bad.  
  
It wasn’t. Instead, it was more of a concerned grunt followed by him running over to one of the booths. Blendin grabbed A large jacket or hoodie, Mabel couldn’t tell until she went closer.  
  
“Here try this.” Blendin said, handing her the hoodie.  
  
It was more a combination of a hoodie and jacket. It had a zipper all the way down the front, but it also had a large hood. She put it on and pulled the hood over her head, it wasn’t really her style. The jacket, she decided that’s what it was closest to, was solid black and covered her sweater underneath completely. It would have to do for now she thought.

He was drowning, there was nothing he could do, Dipper felt like he was getting more wet with each passing second. Somehow, he had to escape but time was running out for him and he knew it.  
  
Dipper awoke gasping for breath, scaring the pig licking him. Waddles let out a squeal as Dipper gulped in air. The pig fell to the floor and ran under Mable’s bed, leaving Dipper to recover from his pig-induced nightmare.  
  
He calmed down now that he knew what was really happening. He looked over to where Waddles had hidden, Mabel wasn’t in her bed anymore. Wondering what time it was, he got up and looked out the window, the sun was barely poking over the tree tops. Mabel couldn’t have gotten up to long before Dipper, she liked to sleep just as much as he did. He decided to head downstairs to find her and get some breakfast.  
  
Downstairs, the kitchen was directly opposite the stairs and Dipper could see Stan leaning down into the fridge. The kitchen wasn’t really the biggest in the world, most of the Shack’s first floor was comprised of the gift shop and museum. There weren’t to many places to move around in the kitchen, so Dipper sat down at the small table between him and Stan. Stan heard the noise of the chair scraping the floor and banged his head on the inside of the fridge.  
  
“Ow.” Stan said, rubbing his head and dropping the milk carton, “No, not the milk.”  
  
Stan sniffled and began to tear up, he quickly changed his expression.  
  
“Wait a second, I’m not going to cry over this.” Stan said, straightening up.  
  
He then called loudly, thinking Dipper was still upstairs, “Dipper!”  
  
“Yeah Stan?” Dipper replied from right behind the old man.  
  
“What the–” Stan’s shout was cut off as he hit his head on the fridge in surprise, “Again really? What did I ever do to you?” He shot angrily at the fridge.  
  
Dipper didn’t really know what to do now so he just sat there, munching on the bacon in the center of the table. Stan then turned around to address Dipper properly now that he was done blaming the fridge for his failed life.  
  
“Morning kid. Here clean this up.” Stan said, pointing at the milk on the floor.  
  
Dipper wasn’t in the mood to clean stuff first thing in the morning, “Uh hey where’s Mabel?” Hoping Stan would get distracted from the mess.  
  
“I don’t know, she ran out of here about half an hour ago, something about the pig.” Stan said, his face now one of boredom.  
  
Dipper looked Stan up and down, “You’ve been standing here for half an hour?”  
  
Stan shot back, “Hey what I do in my own time is my business.”  
  
Now was time to make a break for it, he was not going to clean up that milk. There was no telling how long that milk had been in there.  
  
“Okay well I’m just going to go and look for Mabel then, Waddles is upstairs under her bed.” Dipper said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at the door.  
  
Once outside and free from any chores, Dipper headed into the forest. One of the good things about Mabel’s outfits were the sparkles. There was a small trail of sparkles and glitter on some of the branches and leaves heading deeper into the forest. It looked to him that she must have been running, there were broken branches going in a pretty straight path forward as far as Dipper could see.  
  
After a few minutes of wondering through the trail of glitter, the trail just stopped. He knew Mabel’s sweaters were all different, but most of them had about the same amount of sparkles and glitter. There was no way that all the glitter had bee rubbed off already. There also weren’t really any more branches broken, she must have stopped running, but where did she go? It looked like she had just up and vanished.  
  
There was movement out in the distance. He moved closer to get a better look. Whatever it was must have seen him because it darted out of a bush when he got closer. Dipper was a little startled by the sudden movement but regained his composure when he saw it looked humanoid from the glimpse he had seen. A new creature to add to his journal would definitely be a good start to the day. He gave chase in the direction the thing had run.  
  
The undergrowth cleared out a little through this part of the forest and Sipper could see more clearly what he was chasing. It wasn’t a creature; it was a person, unless there were creatures about his height and wearing clothes. Gnomes and manotaurs wore clothes, but this was bigger than a gnome and definitely not a manotaur. Perhaps it could be a baby manotaur, he didn’t actually know what those looked like.  
  
He decided against that as he was catching up to whatever it was. He could see some more details now, the person was definitely a person, they were wearing shoes and a large black hooded thing. The figure was also wearing pants. They looked like blue jeans and for a second Dipper thought about the resemblance to Robbie. Although Robbie was taller and would have gotten away by now.  
  
Turning to look behind them at Dipper, he saw a white cheek before a rock came hurling back at him. Whoever they were, they didn’t want him following. Well he wasn’t going to let them get away now, especially since they might know something about Mabel.  
  
Dipper closed the gap between them and tackled the figure to the ground. Trying to pull back the hood to see their face, Dipper got a face full of dirt. The figure had scooped up a handful as they were on the ground. He spit out the dirt in his mouth as he continued to wrestle the hood off the figure. Something fell out of the oversized hooded apparel as they fought. It hit Dipper in the arm, and he lost his grip on the hood.  
  
That was all the distraction the figure needed to sling Dipper off of them and escape. He tried to get up and resume the chase but realized that he was caught on a branch. By the time he had gotten his shirt loose, the figure was nowhere to be seen. In the place of the figure; however, there was a small book. That must have been what had banged against his arm, he thought as he approached. The book was on its face so all Dipper could see was the back, it looked a little bit worn and used. Recognizing the pattern, Dipper stood back in shock. Another journal? Ford had only ever had three, what was this one in front of him? He approached the book again more cautiously this time. Before he could get to it though, a rustle sounded behind him. It was a little weird he should hear something behind him, the figure had run in the other direction.  
  
Mabel climbed out of the bushes, covered in splotches of mud. She looked just as surprised as Dipper was at finding him. Both teens relaxed though when they realized who they were looking at. Dipper had been expecting the figure, but who had Mabel been looking for?  
  
That’s when it hit Dipper that she was still looking for Waddles and the last time she had seen Dipper was in the attic asleep. She must have been pretty frantic earlier; the mud wasn’t the only thing wrong with Mabel. There were also several cuts and scrapes along her arms and legs, presumably from the run through the woods. The important thing was that they were together now and he could tell her that Waddles was safe inside the Shack.

Her feet were starting to hurt, she had been walking around the outskirts of the fair for almost an hour now. No sign of Blendin’s anomaly anywhere. In the future Stan must have gotten over some of his cheapskate con ways, the fair had grown by a sizeable amount from the first one Mabel had been to. It was so big that she and Blendin had split up to cover more ground. Blendin had showed her a little about how his newer gadget worked. From what she could tell, the device kept a log of the radiation time travel emitted. She wasn’t very sure about all the technical jargon that was going on, but she got the important bits. Blendin had figured out based on the little blips from the monitor that another anomaly would be happening soon; presumably the person leaving.  
  
Blendin was over by the cotton candy vendor, Mabel could see him from the other end of the fair where she was standing. It didn’t look like he was having any luck either. Now that she had been searching for almost an hour, she decided to take a minute to really look at what was different.  
  
One of the first things she noticed was over by the corndog love thingy. Her heart jumped when she saw it. A pink haired woman was standing next to the ride, along with a surprisingly good-looking man.  
  
Tambry and Robbie were still together! This was the best thing she had seen all day, well either that or how Robbie turned into an actual decent looking man. The acne and the awkward facial hair had finally dissipated. In its place, there was now a chiseled chin with a well-trimmed beard. Mabel also thought that he seemed less obnoxious, something about his change from a black sweatshirt to a casual t-shirt.  
  
She was so excited. How had she managed to keep the two of them together after all this time? Her matchmaking skills must be as good as she first thought. What was even better was the way Tambry looked. She still had her pink-purple colored hair, but there was something else. Tambry had matured a little in the almost quarter-century since Mabel had seen her, but that wasn’t what Mabel was looking at. She was looking at the mini-Robbie by Tambry’s side.  
  
They had a kid! How awesome was that? Mabel’s mind was racing as she thought about all the other love interests that she may or may not have had anything to do with. Scurrying around the fair, Mabel ran to see if there were any more surprises.  
  
Mabel wasn’t really watching where she was running, she hit something as she was running. The ground came rushing towards her face and collided with a sudden shock. The force of the impact caused her lose track of what she had been doing, now she was looking for what she had tripped over. She looked down at her legs to see what she had landed on.  
  
There were another pair of legs directly underneath her own. She also noticed that the oversized cover that she was wearing had come loose, it really was to big for her. Whoever she had tripped over was trying to get up. Based on the feet poking out from under her legs, Mabel thought that they were about the same age as her.  
  
For whatever reason, the person grabbed the back of her hooded jacket clothing again, she realized that was why it had come loose in the fall. That must have been the person trying not to fall by grabbing Mabel. This time the person was doing more than trying to catch themselves. Mabel couldn’t turn over while the person took her disguise off.  
  
By the time Mabel could get herself up the person had already removed her disguise. To Mabel’s surprise, the person had taken her disguise and put it on themselves. They now weren’t even recognizable, not that Mabel had any idea who they were to begin with and looked like a ninja or something now. Was that how Mabel had looked all day? That would have been so awesome to see herself like that all day.  
  
Why would anyone steal her disguise? Unless they were the time traveler…that was it, she thought with a burst of excitement. Now that she had found the traveler, they could catch them and leave. Now all she had to do was get Blendin so they could catch the person.  
  
“Blendin over here!” Mabel shouted as the time traveler started sprinting away.  
  
Blendin looked up from his cotton candy and took a second before he realized what was happening. He was quick to catch up to Mabel and finish his cotton candy. Blendin may not look like it, but he was fast.  
  
Not fast enough though, the time traveler had managed to give them the slip. They had run off behind the dunk booth and into the woods. Mabel and Blendin couldn’t see where they had gone from there. Mabel decided to stop running and catch her breath beside one of the booths.  
  
“I don’t understand, we can’t possibly get to them in time.” Mabel said, slightly exasperated.  
  
Blendin was starring at his wrist again, “I don’t think we can, it looks like the blip is getting stronger. We’ve got maybe a minute or so left.”  
  
The booth that they had been standing next to happened to be the one Old Man McGucket, well now Older Old Man McGucket, was sitting at. The semi-crazy, ok completely crazy, old man looked over at the two of them.  
  
“Say what now? You two say something about a bleeping gizmo doohickey. I got a whole big boatload of them.” McGucket said with his usual erratic nature.  
  
McGucket proceeded to disappear into the booth and reemerged with a literal boat filled with blinking monitors. It wasn’t a huge boat, but it was still surprising considering the lake was on the other side of town. How or why he had all those buttons in a boat inside the fair was strange, but McGucket was always strange. Mabel decided to ignore that little quip, there were more important things at hand.  
  
“How are we supposed to get them if they time travel any minute?” She asked Blendin.  
  
McGucket interjected, “Time travel? You happen to be using a temporal manipulator 2000 ding-a-ling by chance?”  
  
“Huh?” Blendin looked completely shocked, “H-how did you know that?”  
  
McGucket pulled out a similar device from the boat. It looked like it had been tinkered with though, a little bit more high-tech than Blendin’s.  
  
“Oh, I just found one of them after that big horrendous destructive triangle thing in the sky was destroyed. I modified it a little to fix the blippy do-dahs. Looks like your device picks up itself.” McGucket stated.  
  
Mabel and Blendin stood there for a minute trying to interpret what he had said through his accent. Blendin ended up figuring out what McGucket was talking about before Mabel could figure it out. Apparently, the device was registering its own time travel. That meant that unless there were four blips, then all they were seeing was the jump in and the jump out. Basically, Mabel and Blendin had been attempting to chase themselves. Mabel felt a little bad now about how they had chased that random person earlier, probably just some poor bystander.  
  
“Hmm, well that’s a little embarrassing.” Blendin said rubbing his head nervously.  
  
Mabel thought she understood now, “Okay so let’s go back now—”  
  
Her train of thought was interrupted as she looked back at the center of the fair. Her eyes went wide at what she saw, there was absolutely no way her life could be the same now. She had to tell someone or do something. This was awesome!  
  
She was too distracted by the sight that she didn’t see Blendin pulling on his time tape to transport them back. She also didn’t see that bystander from earlier had run back out of the woods, headed towards Blendin. Blendin’s back was slammed into as the bystander came full force from the woods. Blendin released the tape as soon as he was hit, simultaneously coming into contact with Mabel in a flash of light.  
  
Just like last time, Mabel’s feet fell from under her to instantly be replaced by the ground, this time the ground was twenty-five years earlier. The only problem was that it wasn’t a steady landing. Her feet hit the ground first, her face was soon to follow. The worst part was that the full weight of Blendin and the bystander were on her.  
  
Bystander wasn’t exactly the right word now. Earlier Mabel had referred to them as the time traveler, that was technically true now. Maybe she would go back to time traveler, although maybe she might just call them ninja. Whoever they were, they looked mysterious in that disguise Mabel had used earlier.  
  
Blendin had managed to get himself tangled up in his tape again after the fall. Another flash of light signified Blendin’s disappearance, leaving Mabel alone with the mysterious figure from the future. That didn’t last long though. The figure got up before Mable yet again. This time Mable wasn’t as far behind on regaining her footing. The figure began to run as soon as they saw Mable getting up. Mabel wouldn’t let them go this time. She wasn’t sure what to do once she caught him, she decided it must be a guy from the shoe size she saw earlier, but she knew Blendin would want to find them once he got back. She wouldn’t let this guy get away until she at least knew why they were running.


	3. 3

Dipper wasn’t to sure what was going on with his life. He had felt the same way last Summer, one day you’re in a secret lab doomsday prepping the Shack and the next you’re on a road trip across the whole county. Today was pretty similar to that. Dipper felt like nothing really had a continuous flowing motion here in Gravity Falls, something was always on pause until it couldn’t be ignored.  
  
After he found Mabel, well other way around, the two of them had snatched up the journal and headed back towards the Shack. Rain started to pour down on the way, so he didn’t want to pull out the new journal. The walk back had instead been filled with Mabel’s long and overcomplicated tale of the future. He hadn’t let her finish the story though, once she got to the part about her encounter with the hooded figure was when he started connecting things. Whoever that guy was, Mabel told him they were a dude, he was the same guy Dipper had dropped the journal. That made a little more sense to Dipper than he had first thought. Why wouldn’t Ford tell him there was another journal? Because Ford just hadn’t written another one yet.  
  
The only thing that made this more difficult was hat Dipper couldn’t just run up to Ford and show him. He could picture it now, ‘Hey Great Uncle Ford look at this, it’s all the stuff you write in the future.’ That was bad for a number of reasons. The worst one being that once Ford read anything then he was no longer The Author. It was one of many paradoxes that Dipper had read about. If you were to go back in time and give Beethoven one of the symphonies, he was supposed to have written, then in the present you would be listening to music you had given him. Then you have the idea to take that music back to Beethoven for him to perform.  
  
On the surface that was just the normal amount of confusing, taking a closer look made the whole thing impossible. Who was the original composer of the work? The answer was no one, you found the sheet music from Beethoven, but he got the sheet music from you. This was a major issue that was only resolvable with a Time Wish. Seeing as how Time Baby was dead, Dipper wouldn’t be able to get his hands on another one of those anytime soon.  
  
Last Summer the problem had been finding The Author. Now Dipper knew who the author was and where to find him but telling him would do something no one was certain of. Whatever would happen would be bad though, so better not risk it.  
  
Dipper shook his head to clear his mind, he was getting to lost in a tangent. Originally, he had been comparing how today was like that whole doomsday prep/road trip thing. It had still been raining by the time Dipper and Mabel had gotten back to the Shack. The rain wasn’t the only thing different from when he had left; there had been, and still was, a tour bus outside in the parking lot. He had been stuck on register duty for the past hour as the tourists made their way to the Shack.  
  
None of the tourists were in the gift shop right now so Dipper could take a peek at the new journal if only he hadn’t tossed it on his bed while changing. Both his Journal and the new journal would have been soaked if he hadn’t changed right away, much to Stan’s annoyance. Mabel had managed to disappear into the lab while Dipper was changing. Like most of her plans it didn’t make any sense to Dipper at first. Now it made perfect sense, Stan couldn’t just open up a top-secret lair in the gift shop to force her to work while there were witnesses. It really was the perfect hiding spot in the Shack, and this was the Shack, there were at least three previously hidden rooms that had been uncovered last Summer. How many more remained? Dipper didn’t have the answer to that and Stan for sure wouldn’t tell him. Ford might have a blueprint of the Shack down in the lab.  
  
He was starting to really understand a lot right now in his roughly thirty some odd minutes of solitude. Wendy was always, and he meant always, reading some magazine when she was up here. There was literally nothing else to do. At first it seemed off-putting to her fun-loving side, but now it made perfect sense. Dipper loved adventure but he would give anything to take his mind off of doing absolutely nothing right now.  
  
There was a wrinkled-up magazine corner stuffed under some of the boxes under the counter. He thought about where Wendy kept all her magazines, it was never the same one and her pockets weren’t big enough to fit a whole magazine. There must be several hidden around here somewhere. All he had to do was think like Wendy.  
  
That proved to be a little harder than anticipated when he came up empty handed after a few minutes of searching. Oh well, he thought, guess he’d just read whatever the first one was. He reached down and pulled the magazine out from the pile of boxes.  
  
“Glitter and Sparkles: Top Five-Thousand Color Combinations?” Dipper read aloud in confusion.  
  
This was not Wendy’s; Mabel must have caught on to the older girl’s habit. There was no way he would read this though. He had been expecting something a little cooler, like ‘Axe Monthly’ or ‘Chainsaw: The Magazine’ not this girly magazine. How could you even fit five-thousand colors into one magazine?  
  
He opened it up just to satisfy his curiosity, the magazine was only like twelve pages. Well he had his answer now, the entire magazine looked like the phonebook and dictionary had a baby. There were rows of colors with a number ranking in front and a description following, except the description was mostly just a picture. He looked at a couple of the ones he actually liked the look of.  
  
“What!? There is no way sea-foam is better than lake-foam.” He said aloud in surprise.  
  
As soon as the words had come out of his mouth, he through the book behind the counter in embarrassment. If Stan had seen any of that Dipper wouldn’t see the end of it. He didn’t even really know what he had said either, had he ever actually seen what lake-foam or sea-foam looked like?  
  
“Anyways.” He said as he went back to doing nothing.

Mabel immediately regretted her decision. She was now stuck in the lab until the tour group left. It wouldn’t be more than an hour or so, but to a thirteen-year-old that was a lifetime. Plus, Stan had told Dipper to man the register so she would have been free anyway. Thanks to her little slip up, she would just have to talk to Great Uncle Ford.  
  
It wasn’t that she didn’t like the man, he just didn’t have the same humor as her and Stan. They had more differences than anything really. What did she know that was science or math? There wasn’t anything ringing a bell in her head, all she knew was the important stuff like sewing and eating. That was enough for Mabel. But wait, there was something she knew, she had just lived through it.  
  
She rushed down the rest of the stairs to find Ford working on fixing up one of his computer console things. Upon hearing the sudden footsteps, Ford dropped his screwdriver and let out a small noise of surprise. She stopped as soon as he dropped the tool, the last thing she wanted was for him to be mad while stuck with him for an hour. She tried to see his expression, but it was to dark in the shade of the terminal.  
  
“Ah, Mabel. I’m glad you’re here, can you get your arm behind here?” Ford gestured towards the back of the terminal, “My hand appears to be slightly to uh, abnormal to fit back there.”  
  
Mabel looked at his unusual hands, they were already big to begin with, add on the extra finger and she could see why he was having trouble fitting back there.  
  
“Sure!” She said, hoping he would enjoy her enthusiasm.  
  
Her arm easily fit in the space and she was able to unscrew the plate for him. After she had removed the plate, Ford went straight to work as his head disappeared inside. Whatever he was doing seemed to be his main focus. Maybe he would still be able to talk while he worked. Nothing was worse than awkward silence to Mabel.  
  
“Hey Ford, what are you working on?” Mabel asked, trying to break the silence.  
  
Ford’s muffled voice came through the terminal, “Just getting all of this stuff up to date, back when I built this place, I needed something big. Now all of this can easily fit into just one of these terminals.”  
  
That made it easier for Mabel, Ford wasn’t trying to figure something out. All he was doing was salvaging anything he might want to keep. That meant Mabel could tell him all about her adventure with Blendin this morning.  
  
She launched right into her story and this time got to tell the whole thing. She also filled Ford in on the stuff she had missed that Dipper had seen. After she had told him about everything she had seen and Dipper’s little brawl, Ford looked down in thought.  
  
“Fascinating, I didn’t know he had it in him.” Ford said, still deep in thought.  
  
“Yeah, it’s awesome, I’m so excited I just want to tell everyone I see!” Mabel yelled, no longer containing her enthusiasm.  
  
For looked up as Mabel shouted, “No. No that won’t be possible. It could cause to many problems or even a paradox. Me even knowing about the journal might even be enough to do it.”  
  
Her excitement quickly faded when he said that. Why did time travel have to be so complicated? Globnar had been so fun and simple compared to what Ford was talking about. Could it really cause a paradox? Hadn’t Mabel already done something similar with Soos and the vending machine?  
  
“But when I went to the past, I showed Soos how to do something he showed me.” She said defensively.  
  
“The past? When did you go to the past?” Ford asked completely intrigued now, “How far in the past?”  
  
Recalling her big fight with Dipper, she tried to remember how far back they had gone. There had been the whole thing of almost getting eaten by a dinosaur. That could easily be the oldest, but Waddles had almost been killed by a dinosaur last year so that may not even have been in the past. For all she new there was a point in between the present and when Time Baby existed that dinosaurs resurfaced. The old west was for sure in the old west, no way they had gone back to a random Pioneer Day.  
  
“We went back to a bunch of covered wagons; we were still fighting and may or may not have taught them how to high-five.” She said, choosing her words carefully so Ford wouldn’t be mad they messed with time.  
  
Ford looked at her in shock, not angry or even remotely mad, just shocked. He got up from where he had been working and ran over to his storage cabinets. When he returned, he was rifling through Journal 3.  
  
“I seem to recall finding a letter from that time period in my research.” Ford muttered rifling through a few more pages, “Ah yes here it is.”  
  
He tore out a letter that had been taped into the journal. It was old, probably as old as the map from Quinten. Mabel grabbed the piece of paper and tried to read what was on the paper. The letter was written in some form of code, she wasn’t really into solving that sort of stuff.  
  
“I found it with the word ‘Pines’ written on the box it was contained inside.” Ford said as Mabel stared at the document.  
  
Ford continued, “Any chance you wrote this? That would be incredible that your writing would end up in my work twenty years before you were born.”  
  
She did not write this, but she knew all to well who did. There was a clear black and white photograph attached to the letter with Blendin Blandon in the center. This was the note he had been talking about earlier. Thanks Dipper, you had this the whole time and never thought, ‘Hmm weird how Blendin is in this photograph.’ Why would he go to all the trouble of actually taking a picture in the past? Blendin made the least sense of anyone she knew, and she knew McGucket.  
  
“No, Dipper didn’t write it either. That guy in the picture is actually the time traveler we took the machine from; the same one I went with today.” Mabel stated.  
  
Ford had already been practically on the edge of his seat, if he hadn’t been standing, and now paced the room. She could tell his mind was racing with whatever fueled his and Dipper’s fascination with coincidences. Ford raised his hand and adjusted his glasses with his pinkie. Was it his pinkie? Was the extra finger stuck on the edge and a super pinkie or was his extra finger between his other fingers? The most out of place one seemed to be the one next to his index, the rest lined up with Mabel’s fingers except they were shifted over.  
  
Ford spoke as he paced, “So earlier you said this time travel guy was mad because you hadn’t read a letter, the same one you’re reading now?”  
  
Mabel sighed, “It’s really best just not to think about it. He’s never made much sense to me.”  
  
Blendin was the clumsiest person she knew, but that didn’t make him a bad guy. Sure, he may have tried to kill Dipper and her in Globnar and been the puppet Bill had used to gain access to this dimension. The poor man just seemed to have the worst luck anyone could have, no one told him about Bill. How was Blendin supposed to know not to shake his hand.  
  
Ford didn’t stop his pacing, he kept mulling over the implications of what Mabel was trying to brush off as nonsense.  
  
“I don’t think that nonsense is really a good way to put it. There has to be a reason for it. The man must be smart, what was his real goal?” Ford mused, heading back to where Journal 3 had been stored.  
  
“You probably wouldn’t be saying that if you met him. After all he did kind of release Bill.” She argued back at Ford’s musings.  
  
Ford whipped around in surprise, knocking something over in the process, he clearly didn’t know how Bill had gotten out.  
  
Shouting, Ford stared Mabel dead in the eyes, “What! He’s back?!”  
  
She hadn’t meant that at all and was taken aback by his outburst, “No, no I meant the first time. He’s still dead.”  
  
Ford had a way of changing his emotions on a dime, his eyes relaxed and his shoulders loosened up. Clearly the thought of Bill was to much for him to handle and he had jumped to conclusions. As Ford regained his composition, he looked to see what he had knocked off the table, immediately tensing up again.  
  
Laying on the floor was the infinity-sided die, the box Mabel had seen him put it in was nowhere to be seen. The only thing that was clear was that it had been rolled. She moved forward to get a better look at what had been the outcome.  
  
“A llama?” Ford stated, then swung his head around wildly in search of the hairy creature.  
  
Mabel looked as well, “I don’t see a llama.”  
  
“Well then.” Ford shot his eyes back to the die, “What does that even mean?”  
  
He continued, “You’d think if you rolled a llama you should at least get a llama, what else could that possibly mean? Hmm, maybe the die doesn’t work anymore, let’s find out.”  
  
Ford kicked the die with his foot and Mabel stared in anticipation as it rolled to a stop. The die landed on a symbol of fire. At the same time, Ford’s overcoat caught on fire. It happened so suddenly that both of them screamed in surprise, Ford also screaming in pain. It took Ford almost fifteen seconds to remember to lay on the ground to smother the fire.  
  
“Gruncle Ford! Are you okay?” Mabel ran to him and yanked the hot overcoat off of his back.  
  
“Yes, I seem to be alright, a little warm but it was getting chilly anyway.” Ford sat up and brushed the dust off.

The bell rang as the door to the gift shop opened. It hadn’t been more than a minute since he had tossed the magazine behind the counter, good timing Dipper supposed. He looked over to see who was coming in. The long platinum hair was all it took to recognize her. That’s when he remembered where he recognized lake-foam green, Pacifica had mentioned it to him at…  
  
“The manor.” He said, laughing as he made the connection.  
  
Pacifica gave him an icy stare, “It might not be the mansion, but my new place is much better than–” She gestured around her, “–This.”  
  
Right, that whole deal with her mansion had slipped his mind. Preston had kind of bankrupted the family during those hectic Bill-filled days. Not a great conversation starter Dipper, he thought to himself. At least it hadn’t been Soos or Wendy, people he actually liked. Then Dipper would have felt really bad. This was more like dropping a box on the ground; you feel bad for making a loud noise, but something like this to Wendy would be like dropping a box marked ‘fragile’; that would be bad.  
  
“That’s not exactly what I was meaning.” He tried to fix the situation.  
  
He didn’t need another Summer of being at each other’s throats. Last Summer had only gotten better after a category ten ghost, and that was not something that needed repeating. Pacifica had proven she could be better than she was that night, her attitude at the diner only proved that she really was like her parents; she had chosen to be rude and spiteful.  
  
Her icy stare didn’t waver, “Oh, and what did you mean then?”  
  
Well that was a problem, he couldn’t just tell her he had been reading a fashion magazine and that reminded him of her. That would sound weird for a couple of reasons. No, he needed an excuse. Fortunately for him, the vending machine burst open.  
  
“Where’s the llama?” Mabel asked excitedly as she ran into the room.  
  
Dipper and Pacifica just looked at her. Llama? What was she talking about?  
  
“I uh…I thought that was a gift.” Pacifica said, her eyes locked on the staircase behind the vending machine.  
  
Mabel seemed to see the girl after she spoke. Instead of explaining anything, he was completely lost, Mabel just let out an excited gasp and ran through the door to the rest of the Shack. This left him and Pacifica completely confused. It also left him with a lot to explain about the hidden lab, thanks Mabel. This couldn’t possibly have gone any worse.  
  
Now how to explain to Pacifica that an interdimensional demon had coerced his Great Uncle Ford to build a portal hidden underneath the Shack that indirectly released the demon to wreak havoc on the town. That was going to be tough. Pacifica wasn’t dumb either, if there was any way to cover this up then he would have to really think hard. The blonde knew about Ford and Bill having a history, but she didn’t know Ford was personally responsible for what happened. The truth would have to do, he’d just have to trust her. What’s the worst that could happen? Well how about Pacifica exposing the lab to everyone and getting the government caught up in everything again? Yeah that was pretty bad, Ford hadn’t even let Wendy know about the underside of the Shack.  
  
“I guess you’re wondering where she came from huh?” He tried to sound as calm and laidback about it as he could.  
Playing it cool was one of the many tricks Stan had tried to teach him. If you make it sound boring, then people will think it’s boring. Hopefully he was doing it right. He needed to close the hatch, Mabel had left it slightly open and Stan’s tour group could be in here any second.  
  
Pacifica began to approach the vending machine, “Uh yeah, why does your uncle have an entire basement beneath the gift shop? Is that even legal to hide a door like that?”  
  
Pacifica just gave Dipper an idea, “No it’s not legal. That’s where we store all the extra merchandise, but Stan is to cheap to pay for the building permits. He just covered it up with a vending machine instead of coughing up the money.”  
  
That sounded reasonable enough, for Stan’s behavior anyway, maybe Pacifica would buy it. Plus, she may not have known that permits were required to add on to a building, that would make her feel dumb and pretend like she knew what he was talking about. All he had to do now was close it, Pacifica didn’t know the code, and no one would believe her if she told someone.  
  
Pacifica paused to take in what Dipper said, “Okay…your uncle has to be the cheapest man alive.”  
  
It looked as though Pacifica had bought it. He got up and closed the door before the heiress could mull over it anymore. If only Stan had been in here, he’d be proud of how Dipper had conned Pacifica. At least Dipper considered that a con, it was definitely a lie to say the least. Hopefully it was good enough to where Pacifica didn’t bring it up to anyone else. Now time to change the subject.  
  
“So, what are you doing, there aren’t any fancy carpet patterns around here?” He said, seeing if she would remember what had happened with the carpet last Summer.  
  
Pacifica turned from the vending machine, “If you must know, I need your help.”  
  
“Woah hey I had fun last time, but I’d rather not be petrified. I’m fine just being skin and bones.” He said. Hopefully it wasn’t another category ten.  
  
Pacifica glanced up and down at him, “You got that right.” She muttered.  
  
Well that wasn’t what he meant. He may be small, but that’s what thirteen-year-olds were supposed to look like. Her words kinda stung because he had been trying to work out. After his quest of manliness with the manotaurs he had kept up on his physique, lower body not so much, thinking back to the trek up to the Shack.  
  
“Actually, it’s not really for me, my boss told me to find you.” Pacifica said.  
  
“Lazy Susan?” Dipper didn’t quite know what to think about that.  
  
Pacifica rolled her eyes, “No, the other owner of Greasey’s Diner.”  
  
“Wait Greasey’s Diner has two owners?” Dipper assumed Greasey was just the name, not an actual person.  
  
“No, you idiot, I was being sarcastic!” She crossed her arms, “Sometimes you aren’t as smart as you look. Lazy Susan wants you to hook her up with Stan again.”  
  
Wait did she just compliment him or insult him? Dipper tried to read the girl, she was making one of those weird faces like when she gets annoyed and her arms were crossed; probably insult. Either way, Dipper wouldn’t be much help in this situation. Match making was Mabel’s hobby, not his. Why hadn’t Lazy Susan asked for Mabel, she had been the one to get that whole mess started in the first place.  
  
“You can try and find Mabel; she would be the one to talk to about that.” He started grinning, “Or you could always try just asking Stan.”  
  
“As if. I’m not going anywhere near him, especially when he’s not got pants on.” Pacifica stated in disgust, “I already called here about an hour ago, Mabel said she would be to busy with that loud girl and her friend to help. She told me to talk to you.”  
That was just great. Not only had Mabel left him to fend for himself with the vending machine, but now she had left him to fend for himself with Pacifica. Also, he wasn’t any good at the romance side of things, Stan and Lazy Susan was one of those things that Dipper would rather not think about. He especially didn’t want to be the one pulling the strings on that relationship. To top it all off, Pacifica had said Mabel would be busy with Grenda and Candy. That could only mean one thing; a sleepover. Actually, it may just mean they would be spending time together tomorrow, Pacifica hadn’t said what day Lazy Susan wanted help.  
  
He shuddered at the thought of either. Grenda and Candy were nice people, he had been glad to have them during Weirdmegedon, but they weren’t exactly the most indoor-friendly people in the world. There was a reason Pacifica had referred to Grenda as the loud one, and she probably didn’t remember her name.

  


“Sleepover time!” Mabel cheerfully exclaimed as she burst into the attic.  
  
Startled, Waddles ran under the bed. Whoops, she hadn’t meant to scare him like that. She was just excited that the first week back she was going to have a sleepover. Sleepovers in Piedmont weren’t all that common because of her parents, and the fact that she had brought home a pig. Gruncle Stan didn’t seem to care at all. She doubted he could even hear them upstairs; Dipper was the only one who voiced complaints.  
  
She hadn’t planned on a sleepover tonight, Grenda had called her while she was still down in the lab with Ford. Reception wasn’t the best down there, but Grenda’s booming voice was audible enough to get the message through. Either Candy or some girl named Mandy would be coming as well, Mabel had really only understood about half of the call. Grenda had called just after Ford had secured the infinity-sided die back in its storage compartment. He had been dusting it before Mabel had gone down and forgot to put it back. Mabel couldn’t wait to get everything ready so she had left Ford to search for the llama that, according to him, should be somewhere nearby. Her excuse had been that she would look upstairs for the llama.  
  
Luckily there weren’t any tourists in the gift shop when she ran up the stairs. The only thing out of place had been Pacifica. Mabel ran upstairs before anything else could happen, Grenda and Candy, or Mandy, were on their way. She trusted Pacifica a little more than Dipper did, if last year’s events were anything to go off of then Pacifica wouldn’t be too surprised by the hidden lab.  
  
Anyway, that was now Dipper’s problem, among other things, which meant she was free to prepare for the sleepover. Dipper would probably be a little upset that sleep was out of the question, she would make it up to him tomorrow by having the group go on an adventure. Dipper had wanted to see what Ford would be doing, but he would obviously be busy just condensing his tech down in the lab. Hey maybe Pacifica would want to come. She was probably still downstairs doing who knows what, oh right; she was bugging Dipper about Lazy Susan. That would be fun to watch. Hopefully they didn’t plan on doing that tomorrow, better go and see before Pacifica left.  
  
She headed back downstairs, careful to keep Waddles in the room, he didn’t seem to like Pacifica that much. Mabel was thinking about that alternate timeline where Pacifica had won Waddles. Shuddering at the thought, she ran down the rest of the stairs. The banister was to old and chipped to ride down, so running was the next fastest way down. Pacifica was still downstairs, or her perfume was just really powerful. She turned to head into the gift shop when she had a better idea. Why not scare them?  
  
She ran out the back door and around the Shack. It was time to scare the two of them. She charged in through the gift shop, the bell clanging as she entered. Pacifica flinched pretty hard at the sound, Dipper had been facing the door and saw her coming. Well that was disappointing. Pacifica still seemed shook up enough for it to have still been worth it.  
  
She didn’t wait for them to respond, “Hey again Pacifica, miss me?”  
  
She must have scared the rich girl pretty bad; Pacifica was still shaken. Wait was Pacifica rich? The mansion now belonged to McGucket, or at least it had last Summer. Mabel wasn’t sure how much money they had really lost from that.  
  
“Mabel, did you really think that would work? I could see you as soon as you were on the porch.” Dipper said calmly, trying to underwhelm her.  
  
“I got Pacifica, didn’t I?” Mabel shot back at him; he wasn’t going to win this time.  
  
Dipper looked at her, “I probably would have been pretty upset as well if a bell was rung when I did something wrong.”  
  
Oh, she forgot about Pacifica’s whole bell thing. She had been to busy arguing with Candy and Grenda to see the bell in action. Guess this was pretty bad, the bell had been super loud just a second ago.  
  
“I’m sorry Pacifica, that’s not what I was trying to do.” She apologized, trying to make things better.  
  
“It’s alright, it wasn’t your fault.” Pacifica spoke up, “Next time make sure Dipper isn’t looking though.”  
  
Pacifica seemed to have recovered, hopefully things stayed good between her and Pacifica all Summer. Now that that was out of the way, she needed to see if the Northwest was free tomorrow.  
  
“Hey Pacifica, do you want to join us tomorrow on an adventure? Candy and Grenda are staying over tonight.” Mabel asked.  
  
The look on Dipper’s face was priceless. The combination of Pacifica joining on an adventure, Candy and Grenda staying the night, and Mabel coming up with the idea to go on an adventure was just too much for him. She could have told him Bill was back and willing to be friendly and his expression wouldn’t have been as shocked.  
  
“You mean go out into those creepy woods? Um no thanks. Dipper is actually helping me with Lazy Susan tomorrow.” Pacifica stated in disgust.  
  
Dipper’s expression changed yet again, it seemed he couldn’t make up his mind on which would have been worse. Would Pacifica joining them be bad? It looked like he thought it would be. What about helping Lazy Susan? His face kept changing and twitching a little, both must seem equally bad. Pacifica seemed to catch on to this as well.  
  
“Well now that I think about it, seeing you without a face was pretty fun. Lazy Susan can always wait a couple of days.” Pacifica said, smiling at Dipper’s expression of utter horror.  
  
“Yay, now it’s perfect.” Mabel said as Dipper came to terms with how his Summer was starting.


	4. 4

Ten hours and thirty-two minutes. That was how long he had been trying to sleep. Ford had offered to let Dipper sleep in his room for the night. Somehow, Ford could sleep through Grenda’s booming voice and the shrill laughter of Candy. That shouldn’t surprise him though, Ford had probably been in a dimension of pure noise as some point. Gruncle Stan was a complete mystery, really living up to his title. There was no way that he couldn’t hear the girls in the attic, even with his hearing aid turned off. The girls weren’t still either, there was constant running from one end of the attic to the other. The vibrations alone were enough for sleep to elude him.  
  
He fell asleep during the quiet parts of the night, only to be awoken shortly thereafter by the unearthly sounds of a girls only sleepover. Maybe he got half of his usual amount of sleep, maybe. Would he have enough energy for whatever Mabel wanted to do tomorrow? The girls would. Mabel was probably fueling Grenda, Candy, and herself with a concoction of everything sugary in the Shack. Sleep was not one of Mabel’s biological needs as long as there was sugar around.  
  
Even if it was, there was no way anyone would be sleeping soon. The sun was already peeking back over the trees, evaporating the early morning mist and any last hope of shut eye. The trees of Gravity Falls were exceptionally tall, if the sun was making it over the tops then that meant it was about eight maybe eight-thirty. While four hours of sleep may be enough for some brilliant scientists, he was not a brilliant scientist yet. Everything about how he slept hurt. The mattress he had used was not comfortable at all, the attic cot was a hundred times more comfortable. So now he was tired and had a knot in his back, this must be how Stan felt every morning.  
  
Clambering up from the mattress, it was just a mattress on the floor, he silently walked past Ford. Ford appeared to have fallen asleep while scribbling notes down, he was one of those scientists that never slept. Now that he thought about it, how many other brilliant minds had ruined their sleep schedules permanently by an interdimensional demon? And why was he being quiet? Ford may look like he would wake up tired, but Ford would wake up feeling completely fine. Was Dipper really the only one who needed sleep, maybe he was more like Gruncle Stan than he realized.  
  
“Morning Dipper.” Ford said in his usual analytically calm voice.  
  
“What!?” Dipper’s heart went wild from surprise.  
  
How had Ford heard him? The man had slept through the whole sleepover and woke up to the sound of a doorknob turning? That wasn’t normal.  
  
Ford stood up from his chair, “Sorry didn’t mean to scare you. When you spend three years in a dimension where the only communication is the most imperceptible squeaking noises, you get used to listening out for them.”  
  
Well that explained a lot. Ford must be selectively deaf from that experience. Only being able to hear things on the most quiet and high-pitched end of the spectrum. He must not have been aware of the girls upstairs.  
  
“Although the next dimension I found consisted only of screaming heads. Quite a change in scenery, I still have nightmares about that last one.” Ford continued musingly.  
  
“Oh…okay well I was just going downstairs to get some breakfast.” Dipper said, trying not to think about the dismembered head Bill had given him.  
  
That had been one of many unpleasant memories of last Summer. Anytime Bill had been present had been a bad memory, there was nothing good about the demon. Ford had been tricked into thinking that Bill was good. Thankfully, the journal Ford had left had been enough to keep Bill from tricking him.  
  
Dipper left the room and Ford along with it, the idea of discussing screaming heads before breakfast didn’t sit well with him. He needed to eat and couldn’t well do that with the image of a head unravelling still fresh in his mind. How Ford had survived that encounter he would never understand. The man seemed unphased by anything weirdness had to throw at him. That would be him someday he thought. Maybe not learned through thirty years outside his own dimension, but he had been able to handle what Gravity Falls had thrown at him so far. If he was to follow through with this then he would need to work on his tendency to scare easy, and his handwriting. Ford’s handwriting was much neater than Dipper’s was.  
  
He entered the kitchen to wolf down some cereal before Mabel and Grenda ate it all, Candy generally seemed to be the most normal of the three and ate a moderate amount of sugar. As fate would have it; he was to late. Mabel and Grenda had already raided the cabinets for any bit of sugar left. That left him with the blandest cereal on the market. It was almost like it sucked any flavor out of the person eating it.  
  
Dipper grabbed the box of cereal and a bowl, the milk here was sketchy at best and spoiled at worst. He turned his back to Grenda and Mabel who were still busy shoveling cereal in each other’s faces. There was still a spot at the table for him to sit, Candy was eating her breakfast a little bit more sanitarily than Grenda. He looked back as a box hit the floor.  
  
“That’s what happens when you run out!” Grenda said stomping the box repeatedly.  
  
He turned his attention back to the table and took the seat across from Candy. Even after a whole Summer with the girl Dipper wasn’t really sure what to make of her. She definitely belonged with Mabel and Grenda, there was no arguing about that. But she was a lot smarter, or at least she looked a lot smarter, than Grenda. Maybe that was just the glasses and the less destructiveness that made him think that. He had never been to school with either of them so Grenda may be the smarter of the two.  
  
“Good morning Dipper.” Candy said in her usual quiet and polite voice.  
  
Almost everything she said sounded almost like she was phrasing it as a question. To be fair, most of what Candy said was a question. Another reason why he thought Candy was smart; she was inquisitive. Grenda was more of a bash the monster over the head with a chair and don’t ask questions kind of person.  
  
He greeted Candy, “Morning. So, are you ready for running through the forest?”  
  
Candy understood what he meant, “Yes I very much awake. I have mastered the art of sleeping with my eyes open.” She leaned in closer and whispered, “They thought it was a staring contest.”  
  
If there were any doubts about the girls dragging behind, they were gone now. Candy had some pretty cool hidden talents. He knew Mabel could run off of sugar for days, and Grenda looked like she could climb the cliff face surrounding the valley without breaking a sweat. As long as he could keep up from his terrible night, the group would be prepared for anything.  
  
Gruncle Stan shouted through the walls, “Kids that Northwest girl is here!”  
  
Right, how could he have forgotten Pacifica? She was the whole reason they were going on this adventure anyway. Otherwise he would have to make Stan go and see Lazy Susan. He shuddered, something about old people and matchmaking just didn’t sit right with him. Pacifica might pose a problem then. She had gotten covered in garbage once, but not without complaint.  
  
Dipper scoffed down the rest of his breakfast and went to find her. It sounded like Stan had been shouting from the gift shop. With any luck she would be dressed to go outside. Despite being a stuck-up fashion girl, she did have at least one good quality; her sanity. That would keep the group somewhat balanced on the amount of craziness. Pacifica also didn’t seem to be as boy crazed as Mabel’s trio. Mabel had only gotten more boy crazy as the year progressed.  
  
This would be the first time out in the woods with only girls, all the other times he had gone out on a group adventure had been with Stan or Soos. As long as Grenda and Candy didn’t hold any grudges with Pacifica the drama shouldn’t be to bad. The events of Weirdmegedon had probably eased the tension between Pacifica and the girls, but then again, he still didn’t like her after all they had been through.  
  
Well there goes a perfect day, he had walked into the gift shop and was looking at the clean white shoes Pacifica was wearing. Why would she wear those if she knew they were going out into the woods? It had rained yesterday so the ground was going to be muddy in some places. The worst part was that she was also wearing her normal black leggings, light purple t-shirt, and her jacket overcoat thing, he wasn’t sure what to call that. The t-shirt was understandable, but the leggings would probably get snagged on something or get mud around the ankles. The jacket thing was either way, it didn’t really seem to look that expensive. Knowing Pacifica, it was probably well over a hundred dollars though.  
  
Pacifica walked forward, “So are we going yet, I have a schedule to keep you know.”  
  
“Pacifica this is like an all-day thing, what else do you have planned?” He asked.  
  
She huffed, “I know, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t schedule it.” She brushed past him into the living room, “Where’s Mabel anyway. I don’t want to have to put more bug-spray on if she takes too long.”  
  
“Don’t worry I doubt they’d go for your blue blood anyway.” He quipped.  
  
They headed back into the kitchen where Mabel and Grenda had been when he left. They must have gone back up to the attic because all that was left in the kitchen were some flattened boxes and Candy’s bowl.  
  
“They must be in the attic, c’mon let’s go.” He said moving towards the staircase.  
  
The stairs creaked beneath them as they made their way up to the attic. Sure enough, the girls were in the room. Mabel was packing up something, it looked like food, in her bag. Candy was just playing with Waddles and Grenda was rummaging through the closet.  
  
“Ugh, I just can’t find it.” Grenda grumbled as she tossed half his clothes across the room.  
  
“Did you check underneath Dipper’s bags?” Candy asked.  
  
His survival gear flew out of the closet and was followed with a grunt from Grenda. Whatever it was, wasn’t under anything of his. On the bright side his bag was now easier to get to, on the downside all his clothes were strewn across the floor.  
  
“What are you looking for?” Pacifica asked curiously.  
  
“This.” Grenda said as the grappling hook slammed into the wall beside Pacifica’s face.  
  
Pacifica was wide eyed in shock, “Oh, okay. So…is that like necessary or just for fun?”  
  
“Who knows, it might come in handy.” Mabel spoke up as Grenda retracted the hook for Mabel.  
  
Candy sat Waddles down, “It might be our only hope of escaping alive. It’s also good at holding hot dogs over a fire.”  
  
“Alright well let’s get moving, we want to be in the shade of the forest before the sun gets to high.”

Mabel kicked her rock along the path, she and Candy had made a game of seeing who could kick the rock the farthest. Pacifica didn’t want to scuff her shoes and Dipper was busy looking through the woods up ahead. Grenda had already won by launching the first rock straight into a tree up ahead. It happened to be one of the hollowed-out ones used by the gnomes, several had been heard screaming, a beaver was now being used to drag the body of a poor gnome away on its tail.  
  
The group had decided to stay hidden from sight, they didn’t need a run in with the gnome police already swarming to the scene. Dipper had insisted though that they stay and watch, something about they might take off their hats out of respect. She didn’t understand why he wanted to see the gnome’s heads so much, she had seen enough gnomes to last a lifetime.  
  
“Steve was a good gnome; I remember the first time we ever met. It was over by the old growth development; property values have gone down since they added that karagnomeke bar. We were both jam harvesters at the time.” A gnome said through sniffling tears.  
  
“One of the best friends a gnome could have.” Another gnome said.  
  
She had seen enough; this was almost just as weird as the squirrel bath she had seen Jeff taking. The only one she recognized out of the group was Steve, he had been part of the assembly of her old boyfriend. The other gnomes were just random gnomes, maybe she had seen them before, but they all looked the same to her.  
  
The beaver carried the Steve over to a nearby stump and the gnomes gathered around to place him into the center. Music started playing from somewhere as a gnome archer lit the hat of the gnome about to be launched. The gnome hurled into the stump and quickly ignited it. The gnomes then joined in a circle to watch the ceremony.  
  
“That explains all the burnt stumps outside the diner.” Pacifica said, fascinated and confused at the same time.  
  
“A gnome funeral service! Wow Ford is never going to believe this.” Dipper said as he scribbled some notes on a notepad.  
  
She still didn’t know why Dipper didn’t just write in his Journal yet, he probably had it with him but wasn’t using it. Now that they had found the other journal maybe he would finally start writing in his. She still hadn’t seen what number the new one was, they had just left it in the room and Dipper hadn’t had a chance to look at it. What if it wasn’t even number four? What if it was five or six?  
  
“Um guys, can we go now? This is kind of bumming me out a bit.” Grenda said eyeing the police gnomes.  
  
“Yes, they are so cute but vicious looking.” Candy agreed.  
  
“Alright then we’ll go as soon as I write this down.” Dipper scribbled a rough sketch as he spoke.  
  
Usually she just followed Dipper until he got to wherever he was going, but she was getting curious now. If they weren’t staying in the gnome part of the forest, then where were they going?  
  
“Hey Dipper, where exactly are you taking us anyway?” Pacifica asked, beating Mabel to the question.  
  
Dipper stood up and placed his notes in his vest, “Do you remember that big dome that trapped bill in the town?”  
  
Mabel remembered quite well, “Yeah, but how are we supposed to find it, we aren’t from another dimension?”  
  
“That’s not what we are looking for, we ware going to find the center. Where all the weirdness is being pulled towards. The town is only on one side of the bubble, that’s why there aren’t fairies or manotaurs running through the town all the time.” Dipper began heading away from the gnomes, “Something is pulling everything away from the town and I want to know what it is.”  
  
“How are you going to know when we reach the center?” Candy asked.  
  
Dipper looked over at Candy, “Well I don’t know for sure, but it’s near the exhaust port on the alien ship.”  
  
Mabel had already known about the alien ship from last Summer. Candy, Grenda, and Pacifica; however, had no idea. This was obvious in the expression on Pacifica’s face. Candy and Grenda also looked surprised, but Pacifica was ecstatic. She had never seen the girl so happy before.  
  
“Aliens!” Pacifica shouted at the top of her lungs, “Let’s go!  
  
Pacifica literally trampled Dipper as she ran in the direction he had been headed. Wow, the girl really must love aliens. Who knew? Mabel couldn’t begin to imagine how Pacifica must fell right now, it looked like she was on smile dip.  
  
Dipper groaned, “A little help please?”  
  
“Sure thing.” Grenda said while practically yanking Dipper’s arm out of the socket.  
  
“Just leave him there’s no time!” Pacifica shouted back, “Take his journal and run.”  
  
She ran to catch up with Pacifica, “I didn’t know you liked aliens.”  
  
Pacifica was hyperventilating as she spoke, “Are you kidding me? That’s like the most awesome thing in the world! The one thing money can’t buy.”  
  
She looked back to make sure the rest were following; Dipper was on his feet again and heading towards them. Pacifica didn’t seem willing to wait. The excitement of extraterrestrials was to much for her to sit still. Candy was also giddy with excitement.  
  
“How big is the ship? Is it like a mothership or a fighter? What about a freighter, is it a freighter?” Pacifica asked a mile a minute.  
  
“Yes, is it big, or are they just a surveillance crew, waiting to invade?” Candy chimed in.  
  
She didn’t know what to think about this, one minute it seemed hopeless to get Pacifica involved and the next Pacifica was speaking faster than even she could on smile dip. That was saying something. What made Pacifica like aliens so much? Candy was more understandable, she just looked like the kind of person that would be interested.  
  
She answered as best she could, “Well I don’t know exactly how big it is, it’s kind of buried beneath the town. That ridge over there is its outline though.” She pointed at the ridge where she had been captured by the Gideonbot and been imprisoned by Bill, “So it’s at least that big.”  
  
The two girls’ eyes went wide. That must be pretty big then, she wasn’t really good at estimating the size of things. How big were alien ships supposed to be? She hadn’t even been to this one yet. Maybe she should tell them that Dipper was more of an expert on it than she was. 

It took two hours to hike up the rest of the way to the alien ship. The entire time the girls had been behind him discussing what the ship would look like. He didn’t really know all that much about the ship or its inhabitants other than the brief visit last Summer. He had only been that one time, but once was kind of enough when the security system tries to kill you or ship you off to another planet. Pretty much all he knew was that the aliens had been dead for millions of years and that they had adhesive that could seal a rift. Pacifica did not seem very satisfied with his answers though.  
  
“How many are there?” Pacifica asked for the tenth time.  
  
“I don’t know Pacifica, I saw like two, there may have been more I don’t remember.” He said exasperated.  
  
The girls had all been pestering him as they walked, mostly they just speculated amongst themselves. He really wasn’t sure about a lot of what the ship was like. Maybe they had fur. Maybe they were just skeletons and never had anything else. He didn’t know. The girls had decided that their skin was probably either a silver-grey, or a green color. There argument was that it had to be one of these because that’s what the UTBAHC always talked about.  
  
It was hard to imagine Preston letting Pacifica get so caught up in aliens and watching that stuff on TV. He knew she was into ponies; how did she go from that to aliens? He really didn’t know her at all.  
  
He decided, well okay the girls had forced him, to show them the ship before investigating the surrounding area. The group had reached the hill formed by the top of the ship. Well it might be the top, it was hard to visualize since it was covered by millions of years’ worth of dirt. He didn’t have the magnet gun with him so it might take a bit to really get inside. It also meant they would have to either find another way to get to the level he and Ford had been last time or to just go somewhere else.  
  
“Alright the top of that hill has a rock covering the exhaust port, that’s where we get in.” He informed the group.  
  
“How does water not get in? Candy asked.  
  
He explained earlier to Pacifica everything he knew about the ship, including the metal plate blocking the exterior. Candy must have either been to far back or wasn’t listening at the time.  
  
“It’s got a rock sitting on top of the hatch to hide it, the actual hatch is definitely weatherproof.” He summed up; he didn’t want to go into the details again.  
  
Grenda pushed the rock to the side and began tugging at the hatch. It took a bit of effort and some help from a large stick as a lever to open it. The hatch hissed open as the air inside mixed with the atmosphere. It had been a year since anyone had been down, so the air was probably a little stale. He remembered how the air had tasted when Ford had brought him. That had been thirty years in-between visits. The smell had been very bland as well, he couldn’t imagine what it would have been like for Ford the first time. No fresh air for thirty million years sounded unpleasant.  
  
Pacifica spared no time in clambering down the ladder. The blonde was not going to waste a single moment when it came to aliens. He thought it was a little odd that she wanted to just dive right in. She wouldn’t even go in the Shack for the longest time, but here she was climbing down into darkness. She had refused to bring a flashlight when they were leaving the Shack, in fairness a flashlight wasn’t going to be the most useful thing for what he had originally planned.  
  
He descended after her with his flashlight on, the last thing they needed was for her to slip and fall because she couldn’t see the ladder. Mabel followed him along with Candy, Grenda came last. Pacifica’s voice floated up from the darkness.  
  
“Wow how big is this place?” What do you think they used this thing for?” She asked.  
  
Mabel replied from above, “Ford always said it was the exhaust vent so I’m going to guess this is where they shot out all that alien goop.”  
  
Mabel made a squishing sound with her mouth to demonstrate what it would have sounded like. He couldn’t rule the possibility of that out, maybe she was right. Was this used for fluid exhaust? Was this even an exhaust port? Ford had called it that, but there weren’t any labels on this part of the ship. Even if there were, they would be written in the alien language. Ford was probably speculating, because honestly Dipper couldn’t think of another use for this shaft.  
  
Pacifica had reached the bottom, “Okay now where do I go?”  
  
Dipper was almost there, “Don’t move to far away, there is a drop off to your right if you are facing away from the port.”  
  
He didn’t want her to run off anywhere, he hadn’t been to far on this part of the ship. Whoever these guys were, safety clearly wasn’t that important. Maybe in space it made sense for a thirty-foot drop, but on the ground, it was just dangerous. The metal clanged as his foot hit the floor, he brought the light up to see where he was going. He could be clumsy sometimes and didn’t need to lecture Pacifica not to fall only for him to break his neck two seconds later.  
  
“Let’s kick some aliens.” Grenda said as she landed with a thud.  
  
Wait a second, Mabel was down here beside him. Wasn’t Candy supposed to be next? Candy confirmed his suspicions when she let out a small moan. Grenda had landed safely, but she had squished Candy against the wall in the process.  
  
“Oh my gosh, Candy are you okay?” Grenda asked as she let the girl breathe.  
  
“Yeah, I’ve been better.” Candy said.  
  
That was reassuring, it would be terrible if the girl had been incapacitated by her best friend in the first few minutes on the ship. Pacifica wouldn’t want to leave early either; she was only still beside the twins because she needed the light. If he gave her a flashlight there was no telling how far she would be by now.  
  
“She’s fine, can we go now?” Pacifica asked impatiently.  
  
Normally he would have thought she means could thy leave the place, this time she meant can they go farther. It was weird, unsettling to see Pacifica so intrigued by everything, Mabel actually seemed to be the least enthused. He was sure that he had figured Pacifica out. The girl wouldn’t get a speck of mud on her shoes the whole way up here but would gladly climb down into alien goop without any idea how dangerous it was. There may not be any goop, but Pacifica hadn’t known that. Dipper probably could have told her the place was covered by slime from alien slugs and she would still have done exactly the same. She was a girl of paradoxes; one minute clean and mean, the next minute she was covered in dirt and nice. Well okay ‘nice’ wasn’t really the word he was looking for. She still acted all stuck up and deserving, but she wasn’t insulting anyone.  
  
“Pacifica if I give you a flashlight are you just going to run off?” He asked her.  
  
Pacifica’s eyes shot to the floor and she replied quietly, “Uh…No?”  
  
She was a terrible liar. There was no way he was giving her a flashlight now. If she joined them on another adventure, he might not let her bring one then. He would have to figure out if there was anything else that got her this excited.  
  
Originally, he hadn’t planned on having her come on any adventures, she just didn’t seem like that good a person, she had known how to get rid of the ghost the whole time he had been at the manor. He had almost died when she knew the whole time. He definitely didn’t trust her with his life, but she wasn’t as bad as he had thought. He had thought that the whole trip up here would have been nonstop complaining. He had been half right, it was nonstop. Just not complaining, but it had eventually gotten to the same effect. He would gladly talk to someone about the paranormal if they would actually listen to what he was saying. If he said he didn’t know then that meant he didn’t know. How hard was that for Pacifica to understand? There was no way he knew what color they were; they were dead.  
  
Candy was almost just as bad, it seemed that the switch to their short-term memory turned off anytime he had opened his mouth the whole trip. He was just glad he hadn’t mentioned the ship earlier. That might have saved a gnome from a rock to the head, but it was worth not being badgered for an extra hour.  
  
Candy had mostly recovered her breath and was ready to continue. The group began to head to the left of the port, away from the drop-off. Ford had spent almost no time giving him the tour, this was completely new to everyone present. Maybe Ford had been through here before, any sign of tampering would confirm that. Ford had said he raided the ship for parts, but a ship this size probably had more parts than Ford could possibly use. Most of the stuff he had taken was from the engine room and control panels. This part of the ship didn’t look like it was part of either of those.  
  
The group moved deeper into the darkness of the ship, there would be no light except for their flashlights. If the aliens had any kind of light source, it probably wouldn’t even turn on now. The electronics would either have rotted away or been powered by the hyperdrive Ford stole. That wouldn’t stop Mabel from trying though. His sister was busy pressing every switch she could reach. There were a couple above a small metal frame arching out of the floor. Mabel seemed to have some trouble reaching them. None of the group was tall enough to reach that far up the wall. If Wendy were here she could probably clamber on up the frame and flip the switch. Thinking about Wendy made him blush a little, but it also gave him an idea.  
  
“Hey, we can probably find some loose stuff on the floor and try to hit the wall.” He shared with the group.  
  
Pacifica was quick to correct him, “You mean deck, and bulkhead.”  
  
“Bulkhead? That’s a funny word. Hey Grenda, look at my bulkhead.” Mabel said as she pointed to her forehead.  
  
He wasn’t about to let Pacifica steal away his good idea, he had been the one that brought them here. Why did she have to correct him, it didn’t even make a difference.  
  
“Um Pacifica I think that’s called the hull.” He said, trying to get back at her.  
  
“No that’s a bulkhead, the hull is the outside of the ship, both of them are bulkheads but this one is on the inside of the ship. That makes it just a bulkhead.” Pacifica corrected him again.  
  
Why did she know that? What kind of weird, preppy, valley girl and geek combination was she? Now it was to late, Grenda had already thrown something at the switches and nothing had happened. At least it had been his idea, a pretty good one to. But Pacifica had to barge in and steal the spotlight as always.  
  
“Hey, come look at this, I think that switch opened up a side room.” Candy echoed through the passage.  
  
Sure enough, there was an opened doorway, but did Grenda do it or was it already like that? The equipment seemed intact, so maybe Ford hadn’t actually been through here. The room was different from any of the others he had seen so far. This one looked kind of like a sleeping area. He wouldn’t quite call them beds but there were recessed ovals in the floor. Mabel walked up to one of the ovals and touched the inside.  
  
“Squishy, and warm.” She said as she hopped inside.  
  
“Wait Mabel you don’t know what that is. What if it’s automatic and traps you there. This could be what the use to hibernate through all those lightyears.” He warned her.  
  
Nothing seemed to be happening so even if he was right, it wasn’t turned on. It was probably broken like everything else in the ship. He was curious though, how had this stuff not turned to dust after millions of years, the only thing left was the metal of the ship. He reached his own hand down into one of the ovals. Mabel was right it was warm. It also gave a little under his weight, he pressed a little harder. It felt like a mattress almost, except this also felt metallic. Was that possible? Memory foam metal seemed like something straight out of a sci-fi book. Then again, they were on an alien ship so those writers must have been on to something.  
  
He was scribbling down a brief note about the apparently squishy metal when Grenda shrieked, more of a shout from how deep her voice was, as she stared into the oval on the far side of the room.  
  
“What did you find?” Mabel asked from the oval she was still laying in.  
  
Pacifica ran over to check it out and gasped, “An egg!”  
  
An egg! That meant something had laid it. He didn’t know what to think of that. How had an alien managed to survive for this long? Unless there were a lot of them who had been living in some part of the ship for generations. He wondered what a baby would look like, he had seen the adult skeletons down below.  
  
“Wait don’t touch it!” He yelled running towards Grenda and Pacifica.  
  
There was only one thing he knew of that looked actually alien. Everything in this valley looked weird, but only one thing actually looked like it had come from outer space. The worst part was that he knew it had come from an egg; the shapeshifter. If there was a colony of those onboard, then the group was doomed.  
  
He reached the edge of the oval and peered down at the nest. There were actually two eggs. He sighed with relief, both of the eggs had spots on them, and a thick vein-like thing spiraled around each egg. They were sort of a greyish-red color as well. The shapeshifter egg had looked like an ostrich egg, this was definitely not the same species.  
  
“It’s okay, it isn’t the shapeshifter egg.” He said, talking to himself more than anyone else.  
  
Grenda glanced nervously at Candy, “Shapeshifter?”  
  
“Trust me you do not want to know.” He said.  
  
Grunting as he got back to his feet, he pulled his notebook out yet again. This was something Ford would need to see. He had seen to many sci-fi movies to know that they shouldn’t take the egg back with them. Whatever had laid the eggs was probably still around somewhere and would not be happy to find an egg missing. It probably wouldn’t be happy to find anyone in here at all. They really needed to get out of here before it came back. A momma bear would still try and kill you even if you were helping the cub. He hoped that whatever creature this was had the intelligence not to do that.  
  
“Uh guys I don’t really think that we should stay in here. The alien might think we are threatening it.” He said calmly, he was not calm by any means, but he needed everyone to be quiet.  
  
“But Dipper, look at them.” Mabel said, “They’re twins.”  
  
“Mabel this is not the time, if you saw the skeletons below then you wouldn’t want to see one running at you. Now let’s go.” He argued.  
  
“I’m with Dipper on this one Mabel, aliens never seem to friendly in the movies.” Pacifica said.  
  
Finally, the girl was coming to her senses. It seemed all she did was try to get on his nerves. It was nice to know that she wanted to make it out of here alive. That was probably her only motivation though, she probably could care less about what happened to Grenda. Something about the way she glared at the bigger girl made him think that they had a history he wasn’t aware of. They did go to the same school together after all.  
  
Before everyone got to the exit, Candy noticed something else. There was a hatch connected to a ladder above them. She seemed to be the least fazed by the threat of an alien melting their faces off. She began climbing up the ladder and feeling for a way to open the hatch.  
  
“Candy what are you doing? You’re going to get us all killed.” Pacifica hissed at the girl.  
  
“Well this might be a shortcut.” Candy said as the hatch came free, “Are you coming?”  
  
Candy completely disappeared through the hatch above them. What was she thinking, it had been practically a straight path down the first passage from the exhaust port? Her curiosity outweighed her fear of the unknown. Dipper admitted to himself he didn’t mind satisfying a little curiosity in the face of danger, but it was different when you didn’t know what the danger really was.  
  
A clanging sound came from above followed by a gasp from Candy. Grenda shot up the ladder without hesitation.  
  
“Time to do some kicking, I’m coming for you Candy!” Grenda yelled up to Candy.  
  
Mabel had pulled her grappling hook out of her bag and was carrying it between her teeth like a pirate climbing a ship as she climbed the ladder. That left only him and Pacifica in the oval room. He ran up to the ladder, whatever was happening to Candy was more important than waiting down here.  
  
The hatch suddenly retracted with a hiss, separating the two of them from the rest of the group.


End file.
